GRASP

A candidate's view - reaching the end of the Milestone 1 submission maze

February 4th, 2026, by Maggie Shambrook Tag(s): Research proposal, Candidacy

In this blog post I offer perspectives and tips that come from a level of frustration and the utter relief I felt when I finally submitted my M1 proposal with all the supporting documentation.

As this process took about eight weeks, I will share what I now think is an order of priority of tasks I would have found helpful if I had known them earlier.

Writing the M1 proposal

My initial focus was on writing the M1 proposal itself, a 10 page document (excluding references) with a prescribed content framework.

You will find that you need to allocate time to send proposal drafts and receive several rounds of feedback from your supervisor/s. This process can add two weeks or more to the finalisation of your M1 proposal, depending on the complexity of the feedback you need to integrate.

Other necessary tasks

I had not adequately assessed all the other requirements to submit an M1 application. There are 8–10 supplementary documents to prepare, which demonstrate that the necessary tasks and forms have been completed.

It is worthwhile to make a list of the required tasks and allocate time to complete them. You will need to schedule time with your supervisor to discuss matters that require a response from them, and/or their insights.

What I found most challenging

I found some of the most frustrating challenges were ultimately the simplest ones to resolve, and included:

  • Working out where the online Turnitin document upload function is located. Until I eventually located this, I found myself in a continuous loop of information about Turnitin, without any indication of where to upload the Turnitin originality report or how to access it. This report is one of the required documents for submission.

  • Location and clarity regarding the completion of the Research Integrity Course and related quiz. There are 13 very detailed modules, along with a separate quiz, to complete this compulsory course. I thought the quiz would be located at the end of the modules — but no, this is not the case; it is a separate process. If you have reasonable knowledge of research integrity and related ethics, you can achieve the required 80% grade for this quiz without a thorough exploration of all the modules. You can do the Research Integrity quiz as many times as it takes to complete the 10 questions and attain the 80% grade.

I recommend that you complete the Research Integrity Course several weeks before the final submission. I spent almost two days completing the 13 modules in the course and taking notes. Although I learnt a lot, I was also under pressure because of the pending submission date. Locating your mark or grade showing completion of the quiz and taking a screenshot of it are additional hurdles.

  • Submitting the application and upload all of the supplementary documents required to complete the Milestone 1 Application Form. The form you need to use for this process is not the PDF version, but rather an online form with this name. The second section of this Milestone 1 online form provides a list of required documents and an upload function for each document.

Top tip

Establish a relationship with staff in the HDR unit. This connection will be a great support during the process. Communication can be via email and/or phone. I frequently found that connecting by phone short circuited the glitches I was getting caught up in. Often, my own efforts would, frustratingly, land me back on previous web pages — just more information about what I was looking for, and no links.

I encourage you to develop this connection early in the process and have a backup contact in the unit. What I was looking for, on at least two occasions, was a link located on a website page that had no links to get there. You needed the URL address. The people who knew about these back and side doors to the location of several key functions were the HDR staff.

Final thoughts

Good luck. I hope you find the submission process flows well, with a minimum of dead ends and some well signposted guides to help you move through it. I also hope my experience allows you to avoid some of the rabbit holes I wasted time in.

Maggie Shambrook is a PhD Candidate in the School of School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Faculty of Business and Law

Higher Degree by Research

Milestones (includes details on what is required for M1 submission)

Curtin HDR forms and guidelines

Please make any comments/ feedback, or suggestions for further posts at this link. If you would like to write a post for the Ideas Hub blog, please email karen.miller@curtin.edu.au

Photo by Parrish Freeman on Unsplash